In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

448 FRAMES
tricity and distance that had formerly defined the subject's position visa-vis
the world. But while this move seems at first glance to imply a
radical reduction of the distance between Dasein and the world, the
metaphor of "dwelling" maintains the suggestion of a residual gap between
them.
Against such a reading, one could argue that Heidegger problematizes
(though not without some counter-relativization) the understanding of
being-in-the-world as a straightforwardly spatial situation: "The term
'Being-in' [does not] mean a spatial 'in-one-another-ness' of things present-at-hand,
any more than the word 'in' primordially signifies a spatial
relationship of this kind. "46 Still, is it really possible to imagine a situation
of "familiarity" between Dasein and world, as Heidegger evokes
it, without Dasein and the world being related-and separated-by some
kind of spatial configuration? Ultimately, the idea of a certain distance,
however minimal, between Dasein and the world is not eliminated. On
a different level of argument, it is interesting to note that Heidegger's
general tendency to reduce the importance of the spatial dimension47 may
not depend on the denial of a spatial relation between world and Dasein.
Rather, it could be one of those motifs in Sein und Zeit which show the
direct impact of contemporary culture on Heidegger's thinking. We have
seen how, in 1926, people's various reactions to new technologies of
transportation and communication converged in the impression of implosion
and loss of space, and how this experience triggered an active
rethinking of temporal structures on different levels. [see Center vs.
Periphery, Present vs. Past, Center = Periphery] Heidegger's effort to play
down the spatial connotations of his metaphors and concepts may therefore
just be the obverse of that particular experience which, in the second
part of Sein und Zeit, led him to highlight "time" as the meaning of
Dasein.
After substituting everydayness for abstractness, and "being-in-theworld"
for distanced observation, Heidegger-in the third stage of his
revision of the subject-object paradigm-tackles the concept of "action,"
which, for contemporary philosophy and the nascent discipline of sociology,
was the standard reference in discussing the correspondence between
the subject and its environments. Sein und Zeit replaces action
with the concept of "care" (Sorge).48 Heidegger's notion of care is similar
in two respects to Max Weber's then influential concept of action. First,
the notion of care is oriented toward the future; second, it is based on a